Thursday, August 09, 2012

Ma's Doi Potol -- no choices there

All Photo Credits Courtesy my Dad@Kolkata

Food is a topic of much discussion these days. Umpteen channels on the television talk, discuss, present and even produce insane competitions;all on food. There are millions of blogs and websites all over the internet bursting with tantalizing food and bulging with information. There are hundreds of opinions churned out every day about what food is good and bad for you. There are umpteen lists about "Five Foods to Never Eat" and as many about "Five Foods to ace an interview". You would think "Five" would be an easy number to handle ? Naah.

All around me there seems to be a Food bubble. And I do hope earnestly that the bubble does not burst. I am enjoying it.

But as much as I love this gastronomical propaganda I must admit I am also highly confused. There is too much information which is hard to assimilate and even trust these days. There is too much of competition about making food faster, prettier, healthier, better and while one day that means oodles of butter, on the other none of it.There are studies being churned out faster than the dollar bill and when it comes to food it is hard to ignore them even in my standard lackadaisical mode. Why my family's health might be affected by the brand new study, that still smells of fresh ink and crisp paper hot from the printer. My child might grow up to be a psycho because she was deprived of Himalayan acai berry juice as a toddler.

Local or Organic, Paleo or Vegan, Chinese Study or American, South Beach or Calangute, your garndmother's or mine ? The questions are just too many. And honestly if you notice the core of each of these studies and sum them up it might just be what your Mother had been saying all along and you blindly ignored. Ahhh, what does she know after all. Now grandmothers might be more knowledgeable.

When I was a child growing up in India, food was not a media darling. Few recipes in the Sunday newspaper and a couple of half hearted food pictures in the Bengali magazine was all we had to be satisfied with. Glossy magazines like Femina did not talk about food. News Magazines like India Today stayed far away from recipes and if at all, talked about the dearth of food or the high price of it. "Eat it, all of what is in your plate. Food is precious and there are people who are doing without it" was my Mother's common refrain.Food was revered and recipes were all hand me down or shared with neighbors.
My Ma would sometimes cut out of recipes from the Sunday papers and with years they would begin to look like fragile parchment.

Food was a mainstay of the middle class household though. Starting with the morning bazaar routine, getting fresh supplies of seasonal vegetables and fish every day, cooking 3 meals from scratch each day without fail was the norm. We discussed food with love and passion, as something to be cherished and thankful about. Each time my Thama lamented the milk that the milkman got, comparing it with the creamy, almost reddish hued warm milk from the cows in her parent's home in Munger, we collectively sighed. When my Baba said that nothing tasted as good as his grandmother's ghee parathas and mohonbhog we imagined days dripping with drops of grainy tassar silk ghee.

My Ma's cooking usually bordered on the healthy where it was never oily or too spicy for comfort. Yet it was flavorful, always had a vegetable, a fish and grains. The vegetables and fish changed along the season, the dishes varied from light to rich with the temperature. Meat was cooked once a week. I lived my entire childhood yearning for an omlette made with 6 whole eggs which she steadfastly denied spreading the quota over the entire week instead. She or none in her generation stopped to think if it was right to feed this or that. The everyday diet was naturally balanced.

All her life my mother's food style remained the same unlike mine which jumps from no-grain in one week to brown rice only in another and raw salad one day to junk food the next. While she lived with maybe three main kinds of grains, my
pantry has branded as well as un-branded packs of brown rice, quinoa,
daliya, couscous, semolina, flax seeds, wheat germ and other
un-inventoried item which I amass because the recent study said so.
Needless to say I forget about many of them.

I don't know whether her style was correct or whether it worked because the raw food products then were not maligned by harmful chemicals. I am not justifying anything, all I am saying is it was much more easier to think of food and plan a meal then. There were set choices.

Now,every week we run around three different grocery stores. For what purpose I do not know. Organic spinach and strawberries from Whole Foods, flax seed from Wegman's, Bitter Gourd and hot green Chiles from Patel Bhai. And then someone comes and says "Local is far better than Organic" and so I again run around, driving 35miles, getting Zucchini from the farm stand which said "Local Produce". In between I have spent an hour debating whether the more expensive wild caught salmon is less contaminated than the farm raised.Thankfully Organic Milk and Eggs is now mainstream and so we can get that anywhere but now they say Milk is not at all necessary for the diet anyway so there my precious 265 hours were wasted.

Finally when I am home, drained both physically and financially I decide I need some rest and order a processed cheese artisan pizza from Domino's, glug down a splenda infused coke and try to think of the most edible way to cook the couscous so that I can contribute more food to the world wide web.

Of all the "gyaan" that is out there I probably like Michael Pollan's Twelve Commandments best. More Vegetables. Less Meat. Minimal processed food. Cook more. Eat at the table. Though I don't follow them strictly, they make sense.

But here is where I stumble.
"Don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognize as food".

Ideally eating what my Grandmother recognized would have been right because I guess that is what my body was suited for but then came globalization and messed it all up. I eat pasta and broccoli in abundance, and I am guessing she would too if she lived with me in the US. Also when I eat some of what she ate like this "Potol" I am actually committing a crime by not eating "local". I have no idea where my Patel Brothers get their potol from but I am sure it grows nowhere in my backyard.

Potol was a vegetable I was never fond of but summer heat brings back memories of patol and grandmothers. I however did not buy potol again, twice in one summer is enough I decided. This recipe of Doi Potol -- PointedGourd in a Yogurt sauce is a recipe sent by my Mother. I haven't cooked it yet but the recipe I see is pretty universal and might go well with even eggplants. So that is what I am going to do with this recipe next, cook it with eggplants. You can do the same or if you have access to plentiful potols you can make one more dish with the same boring veggie.

A v-e-r-y g-o-o-d post! Great picturisation of ourselves vis a vis the older generations. It is all same for me at least. Regarding Doi potol, recently one day I required the recipe bcoz I had both potol and doi at home and tring to plan the menu for dinner. I searched your blog, didn't find it (instead got stuck into the patisapta :))! then i searched the world wide web and cooked the same. Thank u finally for bringing it forward, thanks to kakima for her recipe.

I love potol, but due to my stay in Chennai its really hard to find this simple yet tasty vegetable. I am really missing all those potol bhaja, potol posto and certainly this lovely recipe of yours ;((.......whenever I visit Kolkata I make sure to eat lots of potol and river fish. Thanks a lot for all the posts that are reviving and spreading our rich food culture.

You know everytime I read your blog.....its kinda make me feel at home.....the things you have said is really true......the way we used to have food or meal during our childhood was more healthier then what we eat today because thats what suits our genes....everything was balanced....ye globalisation has really changed our taste buds and thats why we are now moving towards exercise ,diet control.......fat-free food and blah blah...

Yes, at times I am really tired of all the studies coming out. But then again it IS hard to live a life like our parents and their parents generation did. We no longer cook everyday or buy fresh groceries each day, the groceries we buy come from far off, they are modified to be better, there is a wide variety of processed food available easily, so it IS necessary to be aware about what we are putting in our body.

Absolutely Sandeepa, Probably can't eat half the meals if I were to use grandma rule but I try to stick to the other Pollan five ingredients rule but find it really hard to buy pretty much anything, bread our main staple for breakfast has a minimum of 15 ingredients and I have learned to parse and convince myself :(

Potol I have never seen or heard but found it in an open air market in Bangalore.

Yes, I too give in to convenience and do use some processed food. Current hit is the Taquitos and Dumplings from Costco, not good at all but it is tasty and an easy snack :(But I try to restrict these days as much as possible.

Well said :-)..too much of information and we are confused ..but I also try to stick to three rules - as you said - eat more vegetables, less red meat and try to cook as much as one can, and also don't waste food ..potol doi amar jonno noton ..and potol to ekhon sodhu garam kaal e vegetable noye ..it's available all four seasons..bazzar/haat 'er pics khub bhalo hoyeche ..convey thanks to meshumoshayi..hugs

That is a very intelligent interpretation Nupur. But sometimes I think certain food from some cultures might not be suited to my constitution, like say something as meaty as a "rarely done steak" might not be what my body is used to. But then again adaptation is the key to evolution and I guess human bodies adapt to evolve. You will be the best person to know more on this though.

I cannot imagine my dad taking such brilliant pictures Sandeepadi. Awesome post. Am sharing just because it narrates so beautifully the entire episode of food becoming a media and a social networking darling. Infact, it's only after I have started blogging that I realised that there are so many people crazy like me who are spending so much of time and effort doing what I'm doing - sharing food stories..

May be we are confused seeing so many choices...Life was really simple earlier...My Dad hates the idea of buying vegetables and fruits from Malls. He relies on local sabji market. Potol is not my fav though I have started developing the taste for it in last few years. Doi potol ta khoob bhalo hoyeche..

The curd tends to curdle on heating. To get around this is, 1. Beat the curd well 2. Now remove the kadhai off the heat, wait say 30 secs. 3. Add the curd and mix. 4. Wait for say 30 secs again and put it back at low heat 5. At the lowest heat cook the curd and masalas for a minute. 6. Once you add water rasie the heat and continue

The second way which some people use is to add a tsp of Maida to the curd and beat well before adding. I still go by the remove from heat method

Hi Sandeepa, you've nailed it. The whole food business has become a complicated matter. I visit your blog very often and love your writing. It reminds of simple pleasures, lazy afternoons listening to radio. Really some of the best days of my life

Oh, I hear you, I'm now on a cow's ghee kick, substituted only by cold-pressed sesame oil if there's no ghee. The latest gyan (latest in my life) also advises against curds, garlic, mustard and a whole lot of other spices and vegetables I'm fond of. I too visit several stores to buy healthy stuff - loved your para about how you then resort to junk food after shopping at all those various stores, made me giggle as usual.

Hey Bongmom, I am the student who loved your fish recipes. I have given up learning cooking for now and am good as long as I can whip up a couple of edible dishes.But I keep coming back to your blog once in a while when I know there will be lots of posts for me to read. Love the little stories and insights.

Post ta DARUN likhe cho. Enjoyed reading every bit of it and could relate a lot too! Those jamuns is making me miss home and potol .. i love that veggie and out here I don't get it at all. Amar Ma 'dund potol' banaye .. this recipe me is making me miss that too!

I just love your recipes and blog. Being half a Bong (and a mom) and a big foodie (comes with the territory!) your recipes have awoken the sleeping Bong cook in me :)) Seriously, i am a great fan of Bong food but was too nervous to cook it ...was just not able to get the flavors right. But your blog changed all that! I have been trying out your recipes for a couple of weeks now and man, they are GOOD (my hubby too has simply loved the dishes that I've tried so far) So, thank you for the inspiration, a great gastronomical journey and some wonderful memories (of vacations in Calcutta, and my thakuma's ranna)!

Being bought up in Kolkata and having travelled to so many places around the world and now settled in new york,I must admit that there is no comparison to food made in Kolkata either the roadside dhabas at Park street( the chilli chicken never taste better anywhere) or dakars lane to the everyday normal food or at umpteen bengali weddings( remember the radha vallabhi). The sight of so many vegetables and beautifuly stacked fruits of all sizes and shapes and colors and of course the vegetables are much more tastier( maybe its due to the soil) and the chandramukhi aloos...oh my simply irresistable. I have done a fair share of vegetable picking at the bazaars in kolkata and these pictures come back to me with a lot of nostalgia. Watermelons at 5rs/kg and aloo at 2rs./kg..scrumptious meals made so simply and so tasty and healthy. Thank you Didi for bringing back yesterday memories

I love the way you put down the recipes , i can very well relate to you, since being a bengali have been imbibed with the same principles. Your recipes comes so handy and fast when i am looking for healthy cooking with less oil and masala. Superb keep it up !

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Predominantly a Bong, who loves being a Mom and loves to cook among other things for the li'l one and the big ones.She loves to write too and you will find her food spiced up with stories. Mainly a collection of Bengali Recipes with other kinds thrown in, in good measure. A Snapshot of Bengali Cuisine